Covering all the bases with whatever's bouncing around in my head today!

Phlower Power and the Return of the Bats

The calendar says that Opening Day is only a little over a month away. But you wouldn’t know it if you looked out my window this morning. This was the lovely view from my blogging chair:

Blechh! Snow – and lots of it.

I’ve discovered that with each passing year, I’m less and less tolerant of things like snow and cold weather. In fact, I fantasize about the day when my children are out of the house, or at least in college, and my husband and I become “snowbirds”. We’ll get a condo in Clearwater Beach, be a couple of retirees working at the ballpark during Spring Training, and not have to deal with those evil white flakes from the sky.

Okay, that’s not happening any time soon, as our youngest is only in second grade. But one can dream! :-)

Another sure sign that spring is on the way, in addition to the Phillies’ annual migration south, is the Philadelphia Flower Show. Or, as you’ll see in a moment, maybe I should call it the Phlower Show.

Every March, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society puts on what is one of the oldest and largest flower shows in the country. The past few years I have been a volunteer photographer at the show – in exchange for spending a couple hours photographing the blue-ribbon winners in the horticultural society’s competitive classes, I get free admission to the show, a savings of $28! Not a bad deal – after I’m done with the prize winners, I can spend the rest of the day wandering around the show, taking in the sights and smells of spring.

Every year, the show has a different theme. This year’s theme was Bella Italia, so all the major exhibits had a definite Italian flavor. As you can see, they did a great job of transforming the cavernous interior of the Pennsylvania Convention Center into beautiful Roman-style gardens.

One of the exhibitors, though, must be a baseball fan. As I was about to call it a day, I spied this well-attired statue:

Go Phils!

Speaking of the Phils, they must have read my plea last Friday to wake up their bats from their winter slumber. They jumped all over the Rays on Saturday to win 12-5, with homers from Ryan Howard, John Mayberry, Jr., and Miguel Cairo. Yesterday, they beat the Braves 7-3 for their second exhibition victory.

Saturday’s game against the Rays was televised, the first one so far this spring. It was kind of weird to see Pat Burrell in another team’s uniform, but it was nice to see him get such a warm welcome from the fans in Clearwater. Burrell got an ovation from the crowd before his first at-bat, and tipped his helmet to the fans. Good luck, Pat, with the Rays this year!

Also of note over the weekend was the signing of Adam Eaton to a minor-league deal by the Baltimore Orioles. I suppose I could say that the Orioles must be really, really desperate for pitching, but I’ll refrain. On second thought, I guess I just said it after all. ;-)

Sue,
I have to say, I’m pretty jealous of the snow! I bet being a snowbird would be awesome. We’re getting a cold front here in Florida tonight, it’s going to get in the forties. I’ll be cold, but I’m sure that’s NOTHING to you. Always great to have some baseball incorporated into art. Scratch that, baseball IS art.

PS: As I was commenting on Mark’s Latest Leaders. I noticed that you didn’t know what a ‘tweet’ was.

Twitter is a site where you can basically update your status and let people know what’s going on. A lot of people from the blogosphere are on it.

Hey I”m Orangebird writer of Up In Section 360, seen on Julia’s linklist, please feel free to come over some time, it about the Orioles. great post by the way.
orangebirdhttp://upin36011cc.mlblogs.com/

It’s crazy how the east is getting hit with the snow and here in Colorado it was mid 70’s today. Soon enough all around the country spring will be in full swing : )
Tomhttp://rockymountainway.mlblogs.com

Yay – FIXED IT! And gave you a shout out also! Oscar was the first Pitcher from Canada to make the All-Star Team, George was the first Positional Player from Canada to make the All-Star team. The book neglected to mention PITCHER in the question!

Really great pix, Sue. And when I saw the snow and read your comments, I remembered the day my husband and I looked out the window of our house in CT after a blizzard and said, “Let’s go south.” And we did. Best move we ever made.

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